[Bf-funboard] (Luke) Re: layers vs. groups, and "no render".

Luke Wenke bf-funboard@blender.org
Fri, 5 Dec 2003 23:26:55 +1000


> ....But one might say the term Layer should be kept because
> of historical reasons / to not confuse long time users.
I'd say that new users in the coming years need to kept in mind too, which
might greatly outnumber the number of old users. I think making it more
intuitive (through some better naming, etc) would help make Blender even
more popular. I think clear, intuitive naming is a sign of professionalism.
Long term users may be confused at first, but think about all the new users
who are having a hard time learning Blender, better naming can make it
easier for them.

> For the object manager it wouldn't make much sense to talk about Layers.
> But Groups, I don't know since there could be single objects in the tree.
Sorry I don't understand what "single objects" are...

> Hmm, no change from now, besides you want to use "0" instead of "10"?
> Better mapping with keys, but that's not much of a problem now. And
> having the numbers going from 1 to 9, followed by 0 will look very
strange.
I just think it would be easier to learn the hotkeys if the numbers say
"alt-0" instead of "20"... or "alt-3" instead of 13, etc. (And "0" instead
of "10")
In some games you have weapons for every number... from 1 to 0. It's the
same kind of idea...  with my idea, the user has 2 pieces of information to
remember about the group - its hotkey and its name. For your idea, the user
has three pieces of information in front of them - the group number, the
group name, and the hotkeys (well the hotkeys would be hidden - as tooltips
or not shown at all) The default group names for my idea could be "Group
1"...."Group 20" though.

> > - Multiple objects or groups can be selected using shift-click or
> > ctrl-click.
> Shift-click yes, but ctrl-click?
Well I was basing a lot of it on windows explorer, and to select and
deselect spread out items, ctrl-click is used. To select a vertical list,
you click on one item then shift click the other. Then those two items plus
the ones inbetween are selected. That would make it quicker to select a few
consecutive items. But I guess that is inconsistent with Blender so maybe
only the usual shift-click selection should be used.

> > - The ability to swap group numbers using context menus.
> Please explain what you mean exactly / in more detail.
I mean you right-click on the groupmenu name and there is a pop-up menu and
then it says "Swap with group..." and the submenu shows all the group names
(not the group numbers). If you swap the groups then their orders (e.g.
group 1 or group 2) instantly swap.

>...And discussions about naming tend to be long and pointless.
Ok... I should stop going on about that....

> No no, rendering should work exactly like visibility: if any of the
"layers"
> the object is "in" is set to render, the object will be rendered.
Are you saying there is no "no render" icon? It sounds like there is a
"render" icon instead. It could be a little red circle or square in the
bottom right corner. The metaphor is that it is a recording light. i.e.
"record this layer".

> But locking is realy problematic ...
I thought it just means that the user can't toggle the visibility of the
group/layer in the normal layer buttons. That seems fairly straightforward.

- Luke.